


they love to tell you stay inside the lines, but something's better on the other side

by elsaclack



Series: collateral beauty [7]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, High school teachers AU, Relay race, i love u zainab thank u for being u, in which i vaguely recall the General Insanity of my public high school's homecoming pep rally, pep rally, this is a birthday gift to the incomparably amazing zainab, who is a gift unto humanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 14:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20098975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: Amy Santiago detests pep rallies.It’s probably among the most boring, bookworm-esque things about her - which is really saying something, considering she spends most Friday nights catching up on recorded episodes of Wheel of Fortune when not competing in her highly competitive literature-based trivia league at O’Hannigan’s - but really, truly, she hates them. Hates the uncomfortable chill of the large gym (to accommodate for the 500 students packed into the stands, or so Principal Holt says), the crackling speaker blown out from years of student emcees screaming into the microphones, hates the way the marching band’s sound glances off the wall opposite where they sit in the stands, echoing back harshly to create an off-beat dissonance guaranteed to have a headache unfurling in her temples in a matter of seconds.But most of all - more than anything - she hates the annual teacher relay race.in which amy complains, jake competes, and charles and rosa scheme





	they love to tell you stay inside the lines, but something's better on the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrimsonPetrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonPetrichor/gifts).

> HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ZAINAB @taxicabsandcupcakes THIS IS MY WEEK-LATE CONTRIBUTION TO @taxicabsandbirthdays2019 AND I’M S O R R Y THAT I’M LATE BUT I’M SO SO SO SO GLAD I GET TO BE A PART OF THE CELEBRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND THANK U TO @birdhapley FOR ORGANIZING THIS AND BEING SO AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL AND UNDERSTANDING GOD BLESS THANK U!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amy Santiago detests pep rallies.

It’s probably among the most boring, bookworm-esque things about her - which is really saying something, considering she spends most Friday nights catching up on recorded episodes of Wheel of Fortune when not competing in her highly competitive literature-based trivia league at O’Hannigan’s - but really, truly, she hates them. Hates the uncomfortable chill of the large gym (to accommodate for the 500 students packed into the stands, or so Principal Holt says), the crackling speaker blown out from years of student emcees screaming into the microphones, hates the way the marching band’s sound glances off the wall opposite where they sit in the stands, echoing back harshly to create an off-beat dissonance guaranteed to have a headache unfurling in her temples in a matter of seconds.

But most of all - more than _anything _\- she _hates _the annual teacher relay race.

“_It’s tradition, Ms. Santiago,_” Principal Holt said last week. “_I can no more get rid of it than I can change the school colors. Just pray they don’t pick you this year._”

And hope she does - tinged with a sour edge of bitterness she’s certain shines through to the surface by a face scrunched in distaste - as the emcee rifles one-handed through four envelopes protruding from his jacket pocket. A chill races down her spine, imparted through the frigid painted cinder blocks against her back, and to her right another teacher’s shoulder presses against hers.

“I can’t wait for this kid to graduate,” Rosa mutters, and for a moment, Amy’s discomfort fades to the backburner. “He’s in my fourth period class. Never stops singing that stupid Christmas song. _Donde está Santa Claus._ I swear to god, I’m gonna kill him before December.”

Amy snorts, her eyes never leaving the center of the gymnasium. “At least it’s not _la cucaracha_ anymore,” she offers, and from the corner of her eye she sees Rosa’s head fall back in time with a quiet, strangled groan, memories of previous students shouting the chorus likely playing on a loop. “It could _always _be worse.”

“Yeah, you _could _be teaching a bunch of nerdy AP Calculus kids,” Jake mutters from Rosa’s other side.

He’s already grinning when Amy’s gaze darts to his face - and his grin grows all the wider as her face folds into a glare. “More than ninety percent of my kids are in _your _AP classes too, Peralta,” she reminds him. “You wanna maybe _not _insult them all in one fell swoop?”

“Oh, Santiago, _stop it_. You _know _it turns me on when you talk numbers to me. It’s unfair in the work environment.”

Amy lets out a quiet, disgusted noise that is lost to the sudden explosion of screaming and cheering from the stands. She focuses in on the emcee, desperately trying to catch up on what she just missed while simultaneously ignoring Rosa snickering and Jake staring at the side of her face.

She catches pieces, fragments of phrases filtered through long stretches of garbled _noise_, but she manages to gather enough to understand that it’s time to announce which four unlucky souls will be forced to compete in the relay race.

She’s been teaching here six years and she hasn’t been chosen once, but that doesn’t stop her from bowing her head, closing her eyes, and whispering _not me_ over and over again.

The freshmen nominate Charles, the home ec teacher she’s always seeing fawning over Jake in the break room, and though his face is tinged pink with embarrassment he’s still smiling good-naturedly and waving to the corner of the gym in which the freshmen class is currently tucked away. Many of the upperclassmen are clapping and cheering, too - probably previous students of his - but the applause dies down relatively quickly.

“Does it feel weird in here to you?” Rosa mutters in her ear. “Like…more intense than usual?”

Amy’s gaze darts out across the sea of faces spread out on either side of her. It’s odd - many of them seem to be looking in their direction. “A little,” she admits. “I think it’s just homecoming, y’know? Kids get weird on dance days.”

“They’re staring at you, though,” Rosa mutters.

She can’t seem to catch any of her students’ eyes. “Maybe they’re staring at you?”

Rosa’s mouth falls open, but before her retort can leave her lips she’s interrupted by the emcee’s booming voice. “And the sophomore class nominated…_Ms. Diaz!_”

“_Told you!_” Amy shouts as Rosa pushes off the wall and trudges toward the center of the gym. Rosa shoots her a look over her shoulder - one that says _I’d be flipping you off if we weren’t surrounded by a thousand children right now_ \- and Amy smiles back as sweetly as she can, making a show of clapping enthusiastically.

“She’s gonna destroy Charles,” Jake sighs, sliding into the space Rosa previously occupied. He’s staring out into the gym when Amy glances at him, eyes glazed. “Pour guy won’t ever see it coming.”

“I dunno,” Amy says thoughtfully, watching the way Charles and Rosa slowly circle each other while the sophomore class goes wild. “Rosa’s tough, but she’s not really into these things. I could see her giving it, like, twenty percent effort. Charles may have a chance.”

“What did I tell you about talking numbers to me while we’re at work?” Amy laughs and rolls her eyes, and from her peripheral vision she can see Jake watching her, a grin on his face. “There are _minors _here, Amy. _So many minors._”

Despite her best effort to absorb whatever unintelligible nonsense the emcee is shouting into the microphone now, Amy finds herself fighting the urge to turn her body to face Jake head-on. She can already picture his reaction perfectly - the way he’d rear back a little bit, eyes darting over her face, the tip of his tongue wetting the corner of his mouth in a nervous tick - and it’s so _easy _to get a rise out of him -

The students are screaming again and Ms. Bishkin is squeezing her arm to her left and Jake is laughing, _guffawing_, sliding his hand beneath her shoulder and prying her off the wall before shoving her toward the center of the gym. The juniors - no, the _entire _student body - _every single person in the gym_ is losing their _minds_, screaming at near-deafening volumes, and it occurs to her as she toddles out to the center of the gymnasium floor that they must have called her name.

“_Told you_,” Rosa mocks, voice high and sing-song, as Amy numbly takes her place beside her.

“Isn’t this _great_?” Charles nearly squeals.

“Did they say _my _name?” Amy asks.

Charles’ face pinches slightly in concern, but Rosa snorts and shakes her head. The emcee is louder here, standing two feet away - it’s like being in a fishbowl, hundreds of eyes following her every move, sound coming from every direction, and Amy has to remind herself how to breathe. The gym seems smaller from the center - the walls much closer together - and she’s certain if she could just fold in on herself a little bit more the walls might stop slowly drawing together like they have been since Jake shoved her toward the middle -

“Something weird is going on,” Rosa mutters.

Amy blinks, forcing herself to focus on the faces in the crowd and not on the panicked haze beginning to cloud her vision. The energy is frenetic, borderline manic; she catches several students pointing in her direction, shouting to their friends. “I hate this,” Amy declares.

“And for our senior class, the nominee is…_Mr. Peralta_!”

“Oh, I _really hate this_!” Amy shouts to Rosa over the din of noise overtaking the gymnasium. If the reaction to her nomination was wild, the reaction to Jake’s is a fully fledged riot. Even _he _seems off-put as he makes his way to the center of the gym, his face twisted in concern as students leap from their seats and scream.

“Anybody else getting some real _Lord of the Flies_ vibes from these freaks today?” Jake shouts the moment he’s in earshot.

“They’re like gremlins,” Rosa marvels, eyes wide as they flit over the students before her. “I wish I had one of my knives.”

“It’s a pep rally relay race,” Amy mutters. “How bad could it be?”

Her answer comes twenty minutes later, hidden behind a makeshift dressing screen made of thin white paper, covered from head to toe in single-ply toilet paper that clings to the sticky apple pie filling residue leftover from the first round of the relay race. Charles lost that round - apparently his refined palate and general sense of delicacy surrounding food made him a terrible pie-eating competition participant. Rosa lost round two - it’s sort of a relief to know that her personal space bubble is impenetrable by _all _people and not just Amy, though the looks of disappointment on the students’ faces when they realized she would _not _be allowing them to mummify her made Amy’s stomach churn with sympathy.

Her answer comes in the form of one Jake Peralta, the only other competitor still standing, currently picking shriveled bits of toilet paper stuck in the blueberry filling smeared through his five-o’clock shadow. He seems disgruntled until he meets her eyes; his expression turns cocky at once, grin somehow suave and goofy at the same time. “Can’t wait to wipe the floor with your face on this race, Santiago,” he half-shouts.

The kids are still cheering, the band is playing, all in an effort to cover up the noise of the other teachers setting up an obstacle course on the other side of the screen - but Amy manages to keep a cool, unaffected smile on her face. “You’re gonna have to catch me to do that, Peralta, and we both know I’m faster than you.”

“On what planet? I beat you to the break room every single time Gina emails saying there are donuts down there!”

“That’s because the only people you’re racing for those donuts are _Hitchcock and Scully_! And you _lose _every time, so I’m _definitely _gonna win!”

She doesn’t really notice the fact that they’ve stepped closer to each other until Jake laughs; the smell of blueberries is overwhelming as a gust of breath washes over her face. She blinks, and he’s grinning down at her, brows contorted as he visibly grasps for a comeback.

His eyes dart over her face, catching down near her chin, before jumping back to hold her gaze again - and every ounce of humor twinkling there moments before has evaporated. “You, uh,” he swallows, and from her peripheral she sees his hand twitch into view. “You got a little apple goop on your chin.”

“Oh,” she breathes.

She makes no move to wipe it away.

Her answer comes in the form of the dressing screen suddenly falling away, of the noise around them reaching the loudest volume yet, of Jake quickly swiping the pad of his thumb across her chin before taking off across the gym with a shout of gleeful laughter.

(It’s bad. It’s _really _bad.)

“Shit, shit, _shit_,” she mutters through clenched teeth as she takes off after him.

He’s got her by a head across the hoola-hoop tire run and in army crawling under the line of desks, but her moment of redemption comes at the far end of the gym - she spots the football leaning against the third mascot head’s eye, so she’s already halfway through vaulting over the low walls of copy paper boxes by the time Jake manages to find his football. Her heart is in her throat and there’s silly string in her eye from the football team, all screaming and yelling from where they’re lining the edges of the hoola hoop tire run back to the finish line, but none of it matters - she beats Jake across the finish line with ten seconds to spare.

And the crowd goes wild.

It’s hard not to let the hysteria unfolding in the bleachers around her get to her, in all honesty. She manages to tamp down the urge to spike the ball into the floor, opting instead for a smug grin cast in Jake’s direction as he jogs across the finish line. He looks like he’s been dragged through pep-rally hell; even under layers of silly string and blueberry pie filling and half-disintegrated toilet paper, she can make out his good-natured smile of defeat.

She never expected to apply the word _cute _to such a clearly disheveled _mess _of a human being, but it’s the only word her brain can conjure as they exaggeratedly shake hands. The emcee is screaming and rushes over to grab her wrist, and as he raises it over their heads the kids go wild - and to her left, Jake steps back, his football tucked beneath to join in on the applause.

_So cute_.

She’s ushered into a locker room branching off from the gym, silly string and apple pie filling and god-only-knows what else obscuring her vision to the point that she’s not even sure if it’s the boy’s or the girl’s. One of the administrators, Mrs. Brackens, leads her to the sink, chattering away about how wonderful all the homecoming festivities are, and somewhere off behind her Amy hears the din of the gym grow intimately loud again as the locker room door swings open.

“- almost had her again on the vaulting, it’s too bad you slipped on that silly string coming back to the hoola hoops - just wait, Jake, you’ll win next year for _sure _-”

“I need silly string out of my hair and fresh clothes on my body in the next five minutes or I’m gonna lose my mind, dude,” Jake interrupts. “D’you mind? My bag’s under my desk in my room.”

“You brought a change of clothes?” Amy whines, dipping her head down toward the sink while scrubbing the pads of her fingers against her right eye.

He shoots her an incredulous look as Charles scampers off. “Holt emailed faculty last week and told everyone to bring an extra set just in case,” he reminds her. “Did - did you _forget_?”

“I didn’t _forget_,” she snaps as she whirls around to face him, “I just - I didn’t think I’d be nominated, is all, so I -”

“That’s alright, dear, we’ve got plenty of extra clothes in the office - they’re technically for the school pride fundraiser at the game tonight, but I’m sure Principal Holt won’t mind.”

“Thank you -”

“Amy Santiago forgot to do something Principal Holt told her to do,” he says with a slow shake of his head as Mrs. Brackens hurries toward exit. “For _shame_.”

“Knock it off, Peralta,” she mutters, returning her attention to her reflection.

“How are you acting like a sore loser when you _won_?”

“Because I have _silly string_ in my eye.”

“Well, so do I, but I’m not being a jerk about it -”

“You don’t wear contacts.”

“Oh, god,” he’s at her side in an instant, genuine concern radiating from his frame as he watches her scrub through the mirror. “Do you have an extra pair?”

“Not here,” she mumbles. “I used my emergency pair on Monday after construction dust got in my eyes in the parking lot. I just - I have my, uh, glasses.”

“I can grab them. Or, uh, Charles can. Where are they?”

“Y’know what, I think I’d rather be blind for the rest of the day -”

He stays quiet long enough that she glances up at him in the mirror; he’s staring at her, eyes narrowed in confusion. “You’re blind as a bat without contacts, Ames,” he reminds her. “You wouldn’t be able to teach your last period.”

“That’s my smallest class - they’ll be fine, they can self-teach, I’ll just - I’ll just go home early -”

“What do they look like?”

She hangs her head in defeat, her sigh fogging the frigid porcelain beneath her forearms. “They’re pink. Plastic. Top left drawer in the black case, he can’t miss ‘em.”

“He’s on it,” Jake declares after a beat. “Five minutes. You okay ‘til then?”

“Just don’t let me wander out into traffic and we’re good,” she murmurs as she pulls the offending contact out of her eye. The relief is instantaneous - as is the effect. Resigned to her fate, she pulls the other contact out and carefully steps toward the blackish blur she thinks might be the trashcan at the end of the sink.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Jake asks, hand raised. It’s all unfocused, blurry shapes - though she’s positive he’s grinning in that self-satisfied way of his.

“I dunno, how many am I holding up?” she asks, flashing her middle finger.

“Rude!” he gasps. “Rude and unprofessional!”

She laughs, casts backward for the edge of the sink with one hand, and points toward the benches to her right. “Will you help me? Just - make sure I don’t, like, step on anything or trip over anything?”

He chuckles as he takes her hand, leading her forward slowly. She tries to focus on the uncomfortable humidity pressing against her skin and not on the pleasant warmth of Jake’s hand - on the loud mechanical whir of an outdated air conditioning vent, not the calluses on his fingertips from reading too many books and playing guitar too often.

She tries - she fails.

“Are you okay?” he asks after a moment of silent shuffling.

“I’m fine, why?”

“You’re just - you’re squeezing my hand like you’re afraid you’re gonna float away -”

She loosens her grip immediately, inwardly cursing herself. “I don’t like not being able to see, and I really don’t like having to rely on other people to help me see.” she mutters.

A beat passes, and then he’s squeezing her hand. “It’s okay to be a little vulnerable sometimes, y’know,” he murmurs - voice soft and understanding. “Especially around people who, uh - who care. About you. As a person.”

It’s hard to read his facial expression - hard to read anything at all, in fact - but the awkward tension rolling off of him in waves is undeniable. “You care about me?” she huffs.

She’s not exactly sure what she’s expecting - a biting, sarcastic remark seems customary from him. “Of course I do,” he says softly, tinged at the furthest edges with indignation, as if her questioning whether he cares about her is a personal offense. “You’re my favorite person here, Amy. Why else do you think I mess with you as much as I do?”

“The same reason you make your kids read _Great Expectations_ \- you enjoy watching people _suffer_?”

“Dickens was paid by the word and took _full advantage_, it’s important for kids to learn how to identify a load of shit when they see it -” she laughs, and his grip on her hand grows tighter at the sound. “But that’s a whole different conversation. I mess with you because I - I mean - you’re just, you’re cute when you’re annoyed with me. That’s all.”

“You think I’m _cute_?”

She can’t keep the disbelief out of her voice - and this time, there’s no mistaking the exasperation on his face. “Oh, my god, you are _so dumb_ for a genius. Yes, you’re cute, Amy. You’re smart and you’re funny and you’re the best teacher - the best _person _I know. Obviously.”

“Obvious- there is no _obviously _about this!” she snaps just as her knee grazes against the frigid edge of a metal bench. “You’ve been making fun of me for years - since, like, my _third day here_ -”

“You just get so wound up so easily, it’s kind of a cheap shot at this point -”

“_God_,” she says, “you just act like so many of these sixteen-year-olds who don’t know how to talk to the girl they like so they pull her pigtails instead. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have a little schoolboy crush on me.”

She means it as a joke, but the moment the words leave her lips, she senses the change. She’d have to be truly blind not to - blind to the tension expanding his chest beneath his shirt, to the hard set of his jaw line, to the twitch in his biceps as his fingers momentarily squeeze tighter. She’d very much like to smack her hand against her own forehead in that moment - if it wasn’t still held fast in Jake’s.

“I’m sorry,” she tries, the edges of her voice disintegrating. “I was just - I didn’t mean to -”

“What if I do?”

“What?”

“What if I do?” Jake repeats - impossibly steady, impossibly still. “What if I do have a little schoolboy crush on you?”

She’s never wished for her stupid out-of-fashion glasses more than anything in this moment - to see whatever intense affection is currently smoldering in his eyes - but it’s probably good that she can’t, for if the image before her was any more sharp, any more in focus, she’s certain she’d crumble to dust pinned beneath it. “Jake?”

“I like you, Amy. I’ve been - I mean, I don’t know. I - I wanted to tell you - to ask you out, y’know, romantic-stylez, a long time ago, but you were with Teddy back then and then I was with Sophia - but, that’s, that’s not - I like you. I really like you. And I’ve been wanting to ask you out again, I just - I didn’t think I’d want to do it after all of this -”

“All of - all of what?”

“Y’know - the pep rally. Charles and Rosa setting us up.”

“_What?_”

“Nevermind, nevermind, just - I’m sorry, I don’t mean to spring this on you or to put you in an awkward position or anything, ‘cause you said before that you just - you don’t date teachers - but I just, I thought you should know. I’d want to know. Sorry.”

His grip around her hand is rigid, though not to the point of cutting off circulation - like he wants nothing more than to drop her hand, but also to squeeze it as tightly as he dares. She swallows, trying to tamp down a solid thought, and Jake releases a nervous chuckle through his nose. “Jake -”

“This was bad timing,” he interrupts, the muscles in his fingers rippling against her palm. “I shouldn’t have - I’m really sorry, please just ignore everything I just said -”

“No, but - no, I don’t - I don’t wanna ignore it,” she drops her gaze to their hands - or, to the blurry shape amassed before her where their hands should be - and squeezes gently. “I - I like you too, Jake. Really, I do. And - yeah, this is - kind of weird timing. Like, I wish I wasn’t covered in apple pie and silly string while we have this conversation. Or, y’know, I wish I could actually see your face,” he laughs and slowly edges closer. “But I’m - I do, too. I mean I like you, too, not I like me too, although I’m working on the whole self-esteem thing so like I do like myself, but that’s a separate -”

She’s interrupted by warm lips slotting over hers, buzzing with laughter, by hands pressing in on her lower back to draw her closer, and his hair is as soft and thick as she always imagined it would be - perfect to rake her fingers through were it not for the gobs of half-dried silly string that catch and pull between her knuckles. The taste of blueberries is nearly overpowering, but there’s something else beneath it - something sweet in a more subtle way, something she already knows is entirely unique to Jake. He seems to be pouring every ounce of himself into this kiss, every part of his body moving, bending, pulling, touching, like every last molecule is completely _enraptured_, and the little noise of contentment coming from his throat at each tug of his hair sends a thrill all the way down to the very base of her soul -

The locker room door bangs open from the far end of the locker room and Amy leaps back on instinct - just for the bench to catch her behind her knees, sending her careening backwards into the lockers. She lets out a yelp on instinct, and it’s cut short by Jake’s hands closing over her forearms to yank her upright before her head can make contact with the lockers.

This is how Charles finds them as he rounds the corner - clinging to each other’s arms, Amy’s nose mere centimeters from Jake’s chest. “Oh my god!” he squeals. “Please, _please _tell me I’m interrupting something!”

“Just blind-as-a-bat Amy tripping over a bench,” Jake says smoothly, gently squeezing her forearms one last time before dropping his grip.

“Please tell me you found my glasses?” Amy asks, entirely rooted to the spot save for the turn of her head back toward Charles.

He hands her the glasses and a second later the world is in sharp focus once again - where there is distinct disappointment in Charles’ expression, there is a carefully-concealed grin on Jake’s. “What d’you think, Mama Odie?” he asks, nudging her with his elbow.

“Who?”

“The little blind voodoo lady who lives in the bayou. Y’know, from _The Princess and the Frog_?”

“Oh, god,” she breathes, eyes falling closed as she reaches to press her fingertips against her temples, “I can’t stand you.”

“I ran into Mrs. Brackens on my way back, and she gave me the extra clothes for you, Amy,” Charles says as Jake snickers, gesturing to Jake’s gym bag. “My hands were a little full, so I stuck ‘em in here.”

“Thanks, Charles.”

“Also, I talked Steve into covering your last period so you have time to actually shower before the game tonight.”

“Really? Oh, wow, thank you so much, that’s so nice! I’ll have time to actually go home and shower before I have to be up here again.”

“You’re welcome! I gotta go, though, I’ve got a class waiting on me - I’ll see you guys at the game?”

“Definitely.”

Neither one of them speak until they hear the locker room door swing open and slowly shut again. “You’re telling me that little _ferret _set this whole thing up? How is that even possible?”

“He’s been obsessed with us since you started teaching here six years ago and he’s only gotten _more _obsessed since I - accidentally - well, drunkenly, really, told him that I liked you. He’s been legitimately stalker-level obsessed, Amy. It’s been a nightmare.”

“I’m just - I mean, I can see how he would throw the first round and maybe convince Rosa to throw the second -”

“No, he literally orchestrated this entire thing. It’s been going on for weeks now, and I bet if I had some time I could get enough evidence to prove it.”

“You’re saying he’s a criminal mastermind-level genius and somehow got all four of us nominated for this stupid relay race specifically so that he and Rosa could throw their rounds to get the two of us alone in the locker room?”

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“Well, it’s Charles, y’know? The guy makes blueberry muffins -”

“Amy, think about the logistics, here. You were nominated by an _overwhelming majority_ by the junior class.”

He’s staring at her, eyes wide and brows raised, willing her to get his point. “Okay,” she says slowly, “and?”

“Ames, you don’t teach any junior-level classes. You’re an AP Calculus teacher. You teach seniors _exclusively_.”

Understanding crashes over her like a mighty, towering wave. “Oh, my god,” she breathes, “that _freak _set this whole thing up!”

“That’s why all the kids were losing their shit earlier, they’re in on it, too,” Jake mutters. “God, I’m gonna kill him -”

“No, wait, I - I think I have a better idea.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Let’s just - not tell him.”

He furrows his brow. “Not tell him what?”

“That we’re - that we - that his plan worked.” Heat pricks at the tips of her ears but Jake’s expression has softened considerably at the reminder. “Let’s just - keep it to ourselves, you know? Pretend like we’re still just friends. Plus, that gives us a chance to figure this - us out. In private. Without Charles or Rosa or any of the kids or really _anyone _prying into our business. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, of course it is. Look, I…” he trails off, before inching closer and catching both of her hands in his. “I feel like I could scream from the roof, I’m so happy about this,” he squeezes her hands for emphasis, “but I agree with you. We deserve a chance to figure us out without Charles mouth-breathing down our necks.” Amy laughs, and Jake rocks forward to the balls of his feet, grinning broadly. “God, I love your laugh. Anyways, um, yeah. Let’s punish Charles and not ever tell him that his plan worked. Also, what are you doing after the game tonight?”

She thinks briefly of her half-formed plans to sit at home with a glass of merlot and her recording of season 3 of _Downton Abbey_, before shaking her head. “Nothing.” she says with a smile.

“Wrong, we’re hanging out. Is that okay?”

“Yes.” They both laugh, excitement and nerves singing through the air like electricity. “C’mon, we don’t have a lot of time before the game.”

“Where are we going? I thought you were going home to shower?”

“I am.” She tugs his hand, leading him down the aisle, trying not to giggle at the gears visibly working in his head. “You’re coming with me.”

He visibly brightens as her words sink in. “Oh! Oh, yeah, that’s - yes, let’s do that, let’s go right now, let’s go really fast -”

He practically rams into her in his haste, his lips colliding with hers even as they both laugh - though utterly thrilling, there’s a certain level of familiarity to it all, like this is something they’ve been doing all this time and she’s only just remembering.

“Y’know,” she murmurs as they make their way through the faculty parking lot - not quite hand-in-hand, but certainly too close to be purely platonic, “I think - I think just not telling Charles isn’t quite enough of a punishment.”

“Yeah? You got something else in mind?”

“I’ve got a few ideas…”

She flashes him a sultry grin, watching him try to piece it together, before he lets out a groan. He picks up the pace at once, grabbing her hand and pulling her along toward her car in earnest. “We gotta go, we gotta punish him, we gotta punish him so hard -”

(His punishment lasts nearly an entire school year - by which time the vast majority of the rest of the staff already knows. It ends nearly as spectacularly as it begins, with another pep rally relay race, with another neck-and-neck final race, with the exchange of the championship belt at a long, sound kiss right there in the center of the rioting student body.

Charles faints.

“It was totally worth it,” he assures them woozily from the cot in the nurse’s office later. “I’m _furious _that you didn’t tell me sooner but I’ve already forgiven you and I’m gonna need a second-by-second history from the literal _moment _you first kissed ‘til today.”

“Should’ve held out a little longer,” Jake sighs.

“_Title of your sex tape!_” Amy shouts.)


End file.
